
'Y 



l<^c.6 



271 JermoLi, J. W. An address: Patriotism 
• the Rsbellin, v.ith a lecon-.mendatiow 
Coiiircrs to impeach Andrew Johnson. 8'. 



E 
• 14- 




AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE 



AMERICAN ACADEMY OF MUSIC, 



BY 



J. WAGNER JERMON, Esq., 



ON THE 31st DAY OF MAY, A. D. 1864. 



SUBJECT: PATRIOTISM AND THE REBELLION; 



ALSO, A REVIEW OF ANDREW JOHNSON'S POLITICAL 

CAREER, WITH A RECOMMENDATION TO 

CONGRESS TO IMPEACH HIM. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 

1866. 






At the request of some of my fellow-citizens, I have given my 
coDseut to publish the above address, delivered by me at the American 
Academy of Music, on the evening of the 31st of May, 1864 ; also, 
a review of Andrew Johnson's political course from his inauguration 
as Vice-President, to the present time, containing charges upon which 
Congress is asked to impeach him. 



ADDRESS. 



Loyalty to our country is the very essence of patriotism. 
True patriotism involves some of the grandest moral principles, 
and the purest social aims. 

The love of our country in the lowest state is a noble emotion, 
a concentration of the most refined affections; the love of home, 
the love of kindred, the love of the past, and the love of pos- 
terity. 

But patriotism is great only as an enlightened principle ; and 
it becomes an enlightened principle only, by the advancement 
of local and moral cultivation. By such cultivation alone the 
real greatness and happiness of a country are discerned ; for 
on "what do the real greatness and happiness of a nation centre ? 
Not in physical prosperity, not in the arts, either which 
embellish luxury ; these are not, however, unworthy of our 
regard ; but a nation may have them all, and yet be unsound 
or dying. 

The true greatness and happiness of a country consist in 
wisdom, education, religion, virtue and freedom. 

Great patriots, therefore, must be men of great excellence, 
and it is this alone that can secure to them a lasting admiration. 
It is by this alone that they become 7iohle to our memories, and 
that we feel proud in the privilege of doing reverence to their 
nobleness. 

They are incomparably of a higher value than the richest 
argosies on the sea, or than mines of the finest gejns within the 
land. 

Time, which deteriorates other possessions, adds preciousness 
to them ; time, which defaces or obscures the fairest things ; 
dissolves the mist which, for a little, overshadows glorious 
names ; gradually the shadows pass away ; and they come out 
with undimmed effulgence to the clearest eye of distant genera- 
tions. 
(!) I 



When cities decay, ■\vheu commerce changes its markets and 
its highways, when building's, once of jDroudest structure, are 
antiquated or in ruins ; when laws and institutions, customs and 
traditions, have undergone all possible vicissitudes of reversal, 
the great and the good names of a nation are still within it a 
priceless inheritance — in a word, they are the living wealth. 

There are periods in the experience of the freest nations, when 
the bravest will grow timid, and the most sanguine despond, but 
let the danger come, and not only a million, but tens of millions 
shall be seen hurraying upon the ramparts ; if the danger cries 
for more, more and yet more appear, to prove that the spirit of 
the fathers had not died, but onl}' slept. 

A brave sentiment is that which so enthrones a disinterested 
conviction within his soul, that a man can act and suffer for the 
good of those whom he will never see. A brave sentiment is 
that which causes 'an abstract principle to be dearer to the heart, 
than the most enchanting fascinations with which the senses can 
tempt it. A brave sentiment is that which can enable a man 
to go to the dungeon as to a chamber of feasting, and walk to 
the scaffold, as if it were a stage, on which to receive acclama- 
tions to his triumph and his renown. 

Brave is that sentiment which makes light of life, compared 
with oppression or dependence ; yes, and not of life merely, 
but whatever clings most fondly about it, even home itself, 
ennobled with a wife's affections, and made bright with the smiles 
of childhood. Brave is that sentiment which renders a gory 
bed to the hero on the field, where glory has been won, welcome 
as the bed of his bridal, and the blast of the trumpet which 
proclaims the victory, as pleasant to his soul, as the gladness 
of a nuptial song. 

Patriotism not only requires us to obey the laws of our coun- 
tr}^ but to study the good of our country. A true patriot 
dares do all that may become a man. He who dares do more 
is none. 

Anglo-Saxons stand conspiciou.s among the nations for their 
strength of patriotism. The Anglo-Saxon is a manly race, yet 
it is too much given to boasting. It has borne hardly and 
harshly on every people who fell under its dominion : and 



• 
where it has not extinguished, it has enslaved them ; it has 
given currency to the maxim, "our country, right or wrong." 

True patriotism is that which binds a citizen to his country, 
in the obligations which he owes to his country. In the present 
crisis he is now called on to pay these with his property and 
his blood. He is called on to pay it by any aid which he can 
give towards sustaining our country in the present struggle. 
The patriot citizen pays his obligations to his country, by 
regarding as among the most sacred of human pledges, any 
trust which his country commits to his keeping. Faithful to 
h's trust, his is a noble spirit, whether it be large or small. 

To one it may be given to sustain the executive majesty of a 
nation; to another, "the applause of a listening senate to 
command;"' to another, to sit on the solemn tribunal of the 
magistrate, to hold the balance, and to wield the sword of 
justice. 

The patriotism which is Avorthy of your country, is a high 
and enlightened patriotism. Everything here tends to dilate 
the heart, to send it upwards in gratitude to a fatherly God ; 
to send it outward in kindness to the brotherhood of man. 
The sky itself takes dimensions of granduer, fitted to the 
glorious scope of empire which it overhangs. It is high, deep, 
broad, lofty, and should upraise the freeman s soul, whose step 
is on the freeman's earth. Nowhere is the calm more divinely 
fair ; nowhere is the sto7'm more awfully sublime ; nowhere does 
the sun shine forth with a more peerless majesty; nowhere do 
the stars beam down with a more holy lustre. The atmosphere 
here engenders no deadly plagues, health lives in the breezes 
of heaven, and plenty comes teeming from the soil. Broad 
dominions, to be measured in leagues, only by a scale of hun- 
dreds, snatch immagination from every belittling influence, 
and carry it out from narrow thoughts to an ennobling exciir- 
siveness ; then there are oceans and lakes, in which whole kingdoms 
might be buried, and leave on the surface no ripple of their 
graves ; rivers that sweep over half a world ; cataracts, eternal 
and resistless, that hymn forever the omnipotence which they 
resemble. Mountains, that stretch into the upper light, and 
mock, from their snow crowned-pinnacles, the clouds and the 
thunders that crash below them. All these are your country's 



and your country is God's, and through these grand objects He 
speaks. He speaks in the chorus of your woods ; in the 
tempests of your beautiful valleys ; in the ceaseless sobbings of 
your lakes and oceans ; in the mighty bass of waterfalls, in the 
silver melody of streams ; and the voice he sends out from them 
is a voice for patriotism to sustain to the bitter end the glori- 
ous flag of your fathers. 

Our love of country is the same that has existed in all ages. 
It is of no political age, and of no specific culture ; there are 
no traditions without its inspirations; there are no traditions in 
which it is not the most stirring story ; there is no song, however 
early or however rude, of which it is not the boldest poetry, in 
which it is not the most soul-enkindled and the most soul- 
enkindling music. It lives in all civilizations, it lives before 
any ; it begins before comparison, and it survives all calcula- 
tions. A man does not love the country of his birth because 
it is more heautiful than another ; because it is more prosper- 
ous ; because it is more fertile ; because it gives him more 
knowledge and more power ; because it gives him more to 
enjoy and less to suffer. Men will hold Avith the utmost 
tenacity of affection to countries the most unsightly, the most 
unpicturesque, and the most unlovely ; they Avill cling to regions 
barren and inclement, yes, and love them just as fondly as if 
they were vales in Arahr/, the blest, or the fairest spots in the 
fairest districts of Italy. Who has not heard of the savages 
returning to their lairs in the snow, and our own American 
Indians rushing again from all the luxuries of civilization, to 
their wigwams in the wilderness ? Have not civilized men, too, 
from the midst of knowledge, liberty and peace, turned hack 
the gaze of their hearts over years and distance, resting with 
unspeakable delight upon regions which gave them nothing but 
a hungry childhood, and a neglected youth ? And such is the 
charm of imagination, that these regions, seen through the 
dimness of time, are invested with a mystic beauty, which 
nothirg but the most hallowed instincts could shed around 
them. That tendency in our nature to idealize the country of 
our affections, which clothes an uncouth edifice with glory : 
which causes the sight of a treeless mountain to stir the heart 
like the sound of a trumpet ; which moves us to weeping by 



the hearing of a rustic tuin' : that tendency, I say, has this 
vitality, has this truth, has this worth ; and although the truth 
is beyond the reach of logic ; although the worth is no subject 
for arithmetical calculation, the tendency explains itself by all 
that gives elo(iuence, and justifies itself by all that gives hero- 
ism to action. 

The inhabitants of mountainous regions have been especially 
remarked for the force of their attachment to their native 
districts. How is this to be explained ? Is it by the nature 
of the outward scenery, or by the influences of the social con- 
dition ? If we allude only to the outward scenery, is it that 
the bold distinctness, the picturesque relief of the landscape 
entwine themselves more with the feelings, and lay a more 
tenacious hold upon the memory than spaces of orderly uni- 
formity, or of quiet beauty ? Is it that the pointed crag, the 
dizzy precipice, the chasms that seem yawning to the centre, 
the summits that stretch above the mid-air clouds, the valleys 
that sink into nether darkness — is it that such pungent, such 
strongly expressed forms of eternal phenomena strike more 
deeply into life, and grapple on its thoughts with indestructible 
recollections ? Is it that the gurgling murmur of the torrent, 
the mighty harmony of the cataract, the st/mjjJionies of winds 
among the glens, the stupendous thunderings of storms amidst 
the mountains ; the choruses of tempestuous echoes, rolling 
through the coves, softening by distance into plaintive sweet- 
ness, and coming as the still small voice of spirits far away ; 
voices that ever create sweet music in the heart, and which 
only cease when the chords of being are unstrung 't 

A dissolution of this Union would sweep us away as a nation ; 
it would sweep away the well proportioned columns of our 
constitutional liberty ; it would sweep away our national sov- 
ereignty. The dismemberment of this Union would cause the 
bitter tears of the American patriots to flow over our beloved 
land, and cover the glorious edifice of our national liberty. 

We are engaged in a conflict which has no parallel in human 
history : our whole country resounds with the tramp of armed 
legions now on the way to engage in a war the most foul and 
bloody the world has ever seen ; we are pouring out our blood 
like Avater, and our country is bleeding at every pore. Grief 



IS a freijuent visitor at every fireside, and occupies its unwel- 
come chair at every family altar. For nearly three years this 
wicked rebellion has been going on to break up one of the 
wisest forms of government that the wisdom of men ever 
planned ; for beauty and symmetry, it never has been equaled, 
and never can be surpassed. Until this struggle commenced, 
our couutry teemed with prosperity, and our nation flourished 
in education, wealth and the arts and sciences, far surpassing 
any other nation in the world; happiness and prosperity existed 
in every household, and the old time-honored flag of our revolu- 
tionary fathers floated on every sea and in every land, and has 
been respected by the nations of the earth. These times have 
changed ; the glorious old union is now draped is the sad habili- 
ments of mourning. The fair fields of the sunny South are 
whitened with the bones of your noble husbands, sons and 
brothers. Even in our northern states, innumerable cities of 
the sleeping heroes may be traced on every plain, in every 
valley, and by the side of every mountain. These heroes so 
loved their country, that they gave their last drop of bloody 
and finally yielded up their lives to preserve to future posterity 
that which their fathers gave them, this nohle Union. 

In every town, city and hamlet throughout this vast conti- 
nent, methinks I can hear the wailings and moanings of the 
countless bereaved widows and orphans, going up to Heaven 
after that loved husband, brother and son. Oh ! ladies and 
gentlemen, shall their cries for vengeance be unheard and un- 
heeded ? The sleeping spirits of the heroic dead echo — No ; the 
noble patriots who are now occupying their place on the battle- 
field answer — No. The pages of history furnish no instance 
where the people of any country have given such noble aid and 
lavished their money so freely in sustaining their government, 
as ours has done in the present struggle. Every community in 
the North is organized to alleviate the suffering families of the 
fallen soldier; every church may be called a hospital and a 
work-shop. There you may find from day to day, the old, the 
middle-aged and the young women engaged in preparing comforts 
for the sick and wounded soldiers and their families. In every 
community throughout the North, may be found the "Ladies' 
Aid Society," the noble " Christian Commission" and the ^rawc? 



and great " Sanitary Commission," all using efforts for the same 
purpose — such efforts as are calculated to move a world to shed 
tears of jo3^ Last, although not least, lot me mention the no- 
ble and gigantic workings of the "Cooper Shop" and "Union Re- 
freshment Saloons" of our own city, where the soldier on his 
way to the bloody battle-field, is fed and refreshed— many, I 
fear, for the last time. Such noble acts of love must constrain 
even angels in Heaven to drop a tear, and smile with approba- 
tion. From the commencement of this rebellion, the sacred 
record of patriotism furnishes no instance of more self-sacrific- 
ing love, than these noble acts of our fair women. They have 
not only given aid at home, but even on the blood-stained 
battle-field, amid the booming of cannon, the clashing of steel 
and the sound of the drum, they are found comforting the sick 
and wounded soldier in his last dying moments, when far from 
the home of his dear ones. With such patriots as these, the 
old ship of the Union must soon be safely anchored; the old 
flag, which served as a winding sheet to our Revolutionary 
fathers; baptized in the blood of our heroes of 1812 ; immersed 
in the blood of our brothers in the present struggle, and chris- 
tiened by the God of battles — must and shall be preserved, even 
to the last man and the last dollar. The traitors may as well 
try to pluck the golden sun from his orbit, or snatch the stars 
from their heavenly sphere and throw them at your feet, as 'to 
dissolve our glorious American Union. 

The traitors of the South have plunged our beloved country 
into a fratricidal war, the most barbarous of any age ; cities, 
towns, and villages that were once filled with happy people, 
are now in ruins and ashes — homes that were once happy and 
joyful, have been broken up by the ruthless hand of the 
traitor — the mother's heart that was once gladdened by the 
gathering of her boys around the family altar, is now lacerated 
and bleeding at every pulsation. Our Avhole country, which of 
late dressed in the garment of prosperity and peace, is draped 
in the mourning of death and desolation — the beautiful plains 
and valleys of the once prosperous South, are now lying in 
ruins and waste — our silver lakes and rivers are dotted over 
with the flag of death, flying from every steamer — the ensign 
of death floats from the windows of every house, and darkens 



10 

the horizon above us — the whole nation weeps and bows in 
grief. She weeps for her innumerable company of martyrs 
who are now sleeping in their blood-stained graves — she weeps 
for Mlsivorth, for Baker, for Lyon, for Winthrop, for McCooh, 
for Sedgiuick, for Kearney, for Wadtivorth, and a host of other 
noble and heroic patriots — she weeps by the tombs of your sires 
and brothers — she weeps for the host which the traitors have 
slain — she weeps for the tears of your sisters and mothers — 
she weeps for the sigh of the penniless widow, and the sob of 
the orphan in despair — she weeps for her fields that are reddened 
with the hlood of her sons — she weeps for her old flag, that the 
traitors have trailed in the dust — she weeps for the land that 
has been flooded by the blood and tears of the dying soldiers, 
who gave up their spirits in defence of their country's flag — 
she weeps for the poor God-forsaken and devil-guided traitors, 
who seek to stab the union, and sever that golden chain which 
binds the old states together — the states which were cemented 
by the blood of our fathers. 

Let me give you one scene of ten thousand that are daily 
witnessed in the land. An old man and his wife, residents of 
one of our Western States, w^ho had two sons, Horace and 
Coradin, in the 7th Michigan Regiment, went to the City of 
N. Y., a day or two ago, in search of Horace, who they learned 
had been wounded, and had been brought to that city. Failing 
to find him in the hospital, they wended their way to the wharf; 
in a few moments the Steamer Jefferson steamed to the dock, 
and standing near the bow, was the looked-for son, badly 
wounded. As soon as the plank was thrown out to the wharf, 
the mother sprang on board, and throwing her arms around her 
son's neck, burst into a flood of tears, with her head upon his 
shoulders. For a few moments all was silent, which silence was 
broken by the mother, saying : " Horace, where is your brother 
Coradin?" Horace, pointing to a rough wooden box by his 
side, replied: "There, mother, there is Coradin." The afliicted 
mother, whose head was covered all over with the blossoms of 
nearly three-score years and ten, threw herself upon her 
deceased son's cofiin, sobbing aloud in an agony of grief, while 
the father and wounded son stood by with bowed heads. 



11 

In conclusion, ladies' and gentlemen, let me conjure you 
by all that is dear, by all that love you have for your country, 
by all the love you have for the slain, by all the love you have 
for the living, by all the love you have for your children and 
your children's children, by all the love you have for the 
Union and her blood-bought flag, by the love you have for that 
band of patriots, who form one of the grandest armies that 
ever existed : that army which is now in battle array, to confront 
and beat back those who seek to break up this Republic, to 
stand by the Union, and while there is a single thread of that 
old flag, cling to it, until its folds shall again be unfurled, and 
float majestically over the ivhole Union. 

Stand by that flag as the last and best legacy that your 
fathers bequeathed to you and yours. The old ship of state is 
now being rocked to and fro, and the wind hoAvls through her 
shrouds, the great white caped waves are now running high, but 
she is riding out the storm in all the beauty and grandeur of her 
national strength. With our noble armies, and General Grant 
to lead the old Potomac Veterans, with Meade, Banks, War- 
ren, Hancock, Burnsidc and Butler — the watch-word shall be 
" On — on to Richmond."' The time is not far distant when the 
king of traitors and his tribe of worse than hell-hounds shall 
be strung up in mid-air, higher than ever ever Haman swung. 

We are fighting to maintain the glorious Union and Liberty 
that our fathers gave us : that liberty which has cost much 
endurance ; it has been bought with a great price. Trace it 
along the line of centuries ; mark the prisons where captives 
for it pined ; mark the graves to which victims for it went 
down despairing ; mark the fields whereon its heroes battled ; 
mark the seas whereon they fought ; mark the exile to which 
they fled ; mark the burned spots where those who would not 
resist evil, gave up the ghost, in torture, to vindicate the 
integrity of their souls ; add to these the open sufferings ; 
imagine, if you can, the whole : then you have the price, only in 
part, of liberty; for liberty has cost more than all these. 
Consult, if you can, the purchasers, who paid the price ; arouse 
from the prisons those who perished in them ; awaken from the 
graves the sleeping dead ; call from the fields of blood the 
myriads who chose death rather than bonds ; invoke from the 



12 

caverns of the deep, those whom the ocean swallowed up in 
braving the invader ; pray for those to come once more to 
earth, who bore testimony to the truth in agony. You will 
have a host of witnesses which no man can number ; who main- 
tained even unto death the cause of liberty. 



EEVIEW OF ANDREW JOHNSON'S POLITICAL COURSE 

8L\CE HIS INAUGUIIATIOX 

AS 

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

Containing' Certain Cliarijcs upon niiidi Congress is asked to Inipeacli liini. 



First. — I beg leave to say, that the Republican Party made 
a great mistake in nominating Andrew Johnson as Vice Presi- 
dent of the L^nited States. This was brought about through 
Andrew Johnson's many false and deceptive public speeches, in 
which he professed loyalty to the country and a perfect hatred 
against traitors and the crime of treason. In my opinion, no 
greater plague or curse could ever have been put upon the 
nation, than that which was placed on the country on the day 
he was nominated. On the day he took his inaugural oath, 
he was in a beastly state of intoxication; to use a more vulgar 
phrase, was absolutely drunk — so drunk that he commenced to 
deliver his inaugural address before he had taken the oath of 
office. At that sad and mournful exihibition, the lamented 
Lincoln and the grave and wise men of the Senate hung their 
heads in shame and disgrace. Ancient history tells us that 
kings and princes have imbibed the intoxicating cup upon the 
throne, but furnishes no record that they were under the 
influence of liquor when they ascended the throne. It may be 
that Andrew Johnson mistakes the intensity of his own convic- 
tions for strength of evidence. While he was Vice President, 
he indorsed the principles of Abraham Lincoln, and to use his 
own language " he hoped the State of Tennessee would grow 
hemp enough and strong enough to hang Jefferson Davis and 
all the leading traitors of the Rebel Army." Is he guilty of 
treason ? The course he took in the great massacre at New 
Orleans was monstrous, and proves him to be not only a traitor 
(18) 



14 

in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but guilty of one of the 
most atrocious massacres known to the civilized world. His 
perversion of General Sheridan's orders and dispatches need 
not be characterized by me. His conduct was of such a crimi- 
nal character, that it proves beyond all controversy, that he was 
a particeps criminis to that foul and disgraceful slaughter, 
which will ever be a burning brand on him as long as history 
shall record his name. 

My brethern of this, our beloved republic, and you who have 
braved the storm of rebellion and bared your bosoms to the 
bullets of the enemy ; you who have left your families and 
peaceful firesides from the far West, the Middle and Southern 
States, and met the enemy on the field of battle and fought 
nobly for the maintenance of our glorious Constitution, will 
pause long in the coming autumn election, before you cast a 
vote for the followers of the Chief Executive traitor. My 
brethern, if rebel sympathizers are to be placed in ofiice, it will 
not be long before you will be again called upon to march to 
meet the traitors face to face on the field of battle. You, who 
have sprinkled your blood on the battle-ground ; you, who have 
been maimed in battling for your country and your country's 
God, are now called on to march to the ballot box in October 
next ; you, whose souls are the strength that put to flight the 
rebels during the five past years of bloody struggle for liberty, 
will and must come forward to make a solemn decree that will 
settle, I hope, for all time to come, that the man who stepped 
into power through J. Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Abraham 
Lincoln, shall not be dictator over honest and loyal citizens. 
There are men in this great nation in whose souls yet burns the 
fire of holy liberty, who will come forward in one solid phalanx 
to the polls and cast the die, that Johnson Copperheads and 
rebel sympathizers shall not rule the country. Andrew Johnson 
first betrayed the South, then turned his back upon Northern 
Democrats; after accepting the principles of the Republican 
party, suddenly changed his course and tactics, in order to place 
himself at the head of the Jefferson Davis and William H. 
Seward party — William H. Seward, more hideous in form, more 
infamous in principles, and whose bosom contains a blacker 
heart than that of the arch-traitor Davis. The question now 



ir, 

to be determined is whether, those noble veterans, the poor 
weeping widows and sorrow-stricken orphans, who fill our land, 
shall be deprived of succor and support from the government 
for which thej have suffered affliction ; whether the Constitution 
and Laws shall be disregarded and trampled under the feet of 
rebels ; whether the innumerable cities of the sleeping dead 
shall be disturbed in their peaceful slumbers and dishonored by 
a sky darkened by traitors, and their sacred mounds insulted 
by the tramp of rebels. What a contrast is presented between 
the lamented Lincoln and Andrew Johnson — when, at the first 
shot fired upon Sumpter, treason reared its head and insulted 
our time-honored flag, President Lincoln broke away from all 
party organization and joined hand and heart Avith loyal men, 
never faltered until the storm of patriotism crushed the rebel- 
lion ; he proved himself true to the cause he had undertaken, 
and for which he had so long battled ; true to the memories 
of almost countless dead — true to the noble sentiments he so 
often repeated to his countrymen — true to the noble emotions 
of his heart, which always throbbed in common sympathy to the 
wailings of the widow and the orphan. Abraham Lincoln, while 
struggling to bring back the prodigal States, and after having 
first thrown out the safeguards against future treason, was sud- 
denly cut down by the bloody hand of a traitor. The sacred 
history of the Rebellion will record the sad lamentations of 
millions who will mourn his death. His noble and patriotic 
deeds will be written on every page, and will shine as bright in 
the recollections of his countrymen as the golden rays of the 
glorious sun, and his fame will live as long as the world stands. 
The pen of the future historian will write his ennobling deeds, 
to be read by future generations with pleasure and delight. 
But what will be the fate of Andrew Johnson ? The faithful 
chronicler of past events will record his deeds of infamy and 
disgrace with the long list of traitors Avhose names will be asso- 
ciated with J. Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis, Johnson's pam- 
pered pet, and Mayor Monroe, of New Orleans. The name of 
Andrew Johnson will be associated with those who starved our 
brethren even to death in the slaughter-pens of the South — his 
name will blacken every page of the history of the Rebellion 
which furnishes the true living and burning truths, telling who 



16 

our land was desecrated and laid waste ; of the long roll of 
heroic dead whose bones are whitening the once fair fields of 
the South ; the rivers of blood that flowed in support of the 
Constitution of our noble country ; the long and melancholy 
list of widows and orphans ; the countless maimed veterans who 
are now seen at the corners of the streets in every city and 
town of the Union. These pages will contain the weepings and 
the woes of millions of those who once clustered around the 
happy family altars of our land, and also the name of many an 
asylum filled with soldiers' orphans. All these facts will rise 
up against Andrew Johnson and his co-rebel admirers in the 
present political struggle, but will cling to his memory long 
after he shall cease to live. 

Andrew Johnson has declared that he would arrest Congress, 
if impeachment were threatened. He may possibly have an 
opportunity to make the attempt, but I fear not the conse- 
quences. There is a vast multitude watching Johnson, and 
those that are now encircled around him. This multitude is 
composed of those who fought and bled to put down the Re- 
bellion. Andrew Johnson has hurled loyal men from ofiice to 
make room for traitors ; if, then, he is guilty of treason, why 
not impeach him for treason at the meeting of the next Con- 
gress ; if he is guilty of plotting treason with rebels, if he is 
guilty of the New Orleans and Memphis riots, if he is guilty of 
conspiring in secret conclave with those who are the leaders of 
the Rebellion, and who are now seeking to overthrow the 
Government, then is he guilty of the heinous crime of treason. 
If he did aid or abet the committing of any overt act such as I 
have spoken of, it makes no difference whether he was present 
or absent from the place where the overt act was committed ; 
for in law there are no accessories, but all are principals — all 
particeps criminis are principals. In conspiracy he who pro- 
cures another to commit an overt act is guilt}'- of the fact. By 
the third section of the second article of the Constitution of the 
United States the Senate shall try the President upon a trial 
for impeachment, the Chief Justice presiding. Now I prefer 
the following charges against Andrew Johnson for his impeach- 
ment, and if the loyal members of our next Congress have the 
nerve, Andrew Johnson will not only be hurled from his dicta- 



17 

torial throne, but there will be enough loyal men to procure his 
indictment in a federal court, before a jury of his countrymen. 

Is Andrew Johnson not guilty of treason, when he publicly 
said that he would veto all or any bills passed by Congress, 
whether he thought them constitutional or otherwise ? Did he 
not say in his speech to the citizens of Cincinnati, that with an 
army at his back and fifty millions in the Treasury, he could 
make himself dictator ? Andrew Johnson become dictator of 
this country ! No ! True sons of liberty in little Vermont, in 
casting their votes for the Union, have emphatically declared 
that cannot be, and the triumphant news from the loyal men of 
that State has flashed across the telegraphic wires to every town 
and hamlet throughout this broad continent and the blaze of 
their glorious victory, will burn, in the coming elections, still 
brighter and brighter throughout every state. 

First. Is he not guilty of being intoxicated on the day he 
took the oath as Vice-President of the United States ? 

Second. Is he not guilty of complicity with known traitors 
at the South ? 

Third. Is he not guilty of complicity with the friends of Jeffer- 
son Davis in endeavoring to put off his trial till after the fall 
elections, and promising Davis' friends that after the election 
he should be pardoned ? 

Fourth. Is he not guilty of the New Orleans massacre, by 
giving aid and comfort to the Mayor and police of that city to 
break up a lawful convention of peaceable citizens, associated 
according to law, and for a lawful purpose ? 

Fifth. Is he not guilty of turning out of office loyal men and 
placing rebel sympathizers in office 'i 

Sixth. Is he not guilty of publicly accusing loyal members 
of Congress of being traitors ? 

Seventh. Is he not guilty, equally, with William H. Seward, of 
treason, in standing by and hearing that gentleman publicly 
put the following question to the citizens of Indianapolis, to 
wit : "all who are in favor of thirteen states being in the Union, 
will say aye, and those in favor of thirty-six will vote in favor 
of that"? 

Eighth. Is he not guilty of treason in giving his aid and sup- 
port to the Philadelphia Wigwam Convention, which consisted 



18 

mainly of leading Southern rebel sympathizers, the express 
object of which convention Avas to drag into the Union disloyal 
members from the late rebel states, contrary to the terms of 
Congress, laid down in the proposed amendments of the Consti- 
tution ? 

Ninth. Is he not guilty of pardoning many leading traitors 
when he held the evidence sufficient to convict the same of the 
crime of treason ? 

Tenth. Is he, or is he not, guilty of breaking his oath of 
office, in which he swore to support and defend the Constitution 
and Laws of the United States ? 



MP I 



